Chapter 13 Pandora #2
He’s on the hockey team, I think. Or maybe he was on the swim team?
Who even cares.
Both of them have their large red cups in hand, and Tate chugs his drink down. Judging from how red his face is, he’s had a few drinks already. Perfect.
I sidle up to the two. Hopefully Tate isn’t actually interested in this woman. Although if he is, I’m going to be doing her a favor.
“Hi,” I say, pitching my voice up. “Tate, right?”
Tate and the angel both seem surprised. “Uh, yeah?”
I smile at him. “I saw you play the other day. You were amazing.”
He lights up. “You came to my hockey game?”
Score one for me. I remembered what dumb team sport he plays.
The angel frowns. “Sorry, who are you? We were in the middle of something.”
I ignore her and subtly position myself closer to Tate. “Yeah. I loved seeing your…” I run my hand along his exposed bicep. “...form. You’re in peak condition.”
The obvious flattery should have given me away, but Tate eats it up. I guess I’m such a sure thing, he doesn’t want to invest in chatting with the angel anymore.
“I am,” Tate says. “It’s not just my arms that are big, you know.”
Oh my god.
I giggle anyway. “Yeah? You mean your legs are big too, right?” I glance down, staring pointedly between his legs.”
The angel huffs and walks off. Hopefully she’ll rethink her choice in male companionship, because Tate is not it.
“Definitely my legs,” Tate agrees.
I pull out the small candy from my pocket. “Are you a fun kind of guy?”
His eyes widen, and he looks around very obviously before he nods. “I’m always down for extra party favors.”
“Oh, this is extra good.” I lean in and run my lips along his jaw. “I’ve been looking for somebody who can meet me in heaven.”
Tate groans. When his lips part, I place the candy on his tongue. He sucks on it and sighs happily. “I didn’t realize Nyxies could be fun like this. Blaze has been on my ass about…” He shakes his head and wraps his arms around me. “Whatever. You want to take this somewhere more private?”
I grin. “Dance with me first. I want you to feel me when you’re properly high. Fucking while on this stuff is absolutely transcendent.”
That’s how people talk about drugs, right?
Tate starts to kiss along my neck. My skin crawls, even though there’s no reason for it. It’s not like a million and a half guys haven’t already had their lips on me. Tate’s done it before too.
Tate was right there that night.
Maybe my plan is too mild.
I should take him out back and saw him up and feed him to the rats.
My phone buzzes in my pocket.
“One sec,” I say, pulling my phone out. Tate doesn’t stop pawing at me. I guess that means the “candy” is working.
Anastasia
So when are we starting?
Pandora
Now’s good!
Tate pulls back enough to complain. “Babe, is a text really more interesting than me?”
“Nope!” I put my phone away. A few moments later, the music turns to a new song, a much higher beat than the previous one.
Tate dances with me, although about halfway through the track he starts to squirm. “Fuck. I gotta piss. One sec.”
“What? This is my favorite song!” I exclaim, pulling him back. “Just hold it!”
Tate groans and shakes his head, but I pull him into a kiss to distract him.
The song winds down.
“I really gotta go,” Tate says. “Shit. I really, really gotta go.”
“Then go,” I say, pushing down over his bladder.
Tate’s eyes widen, and right as the song ends, a small wet spot begins to form in the front of his basketball shorts.
The next track begins to play.
Tate’s voice pipes through the speakers.
“I once drank piss. And I liked it.”
The entire room goes dead silent.
I shriek and pull away from Tate. “What the fuck? You’re pissing yourself!”
“I thought it was juice! But it tasted better!” the track plays.
“Oh my god, are you doing this on purpose?” I shout.
Tate shakes his head, bewildered. “No! I’m not, I didn’t—!”
But the smell of piss rises even in this room filled with people. The ones who were standing closest to us back away, and another person shouts, “Gross! Tate is pissing himself!”
More of Tate’s frat hazing confession plays, some of the lines repeated over and over.
“That’s not true!” Tate shouts. He tries to run, but there are people in the way.
People who are all laughing and shouting now, pointing at his piss-stained shorts.
I slip away from everybody, reaching into my pocket to clutch my lucky charm.
Mission accomplished.
“Proud of yourself?” a voice asks from nearby.
River.
I turn to look at him and nod. “Very. Honestly, Tate should thank me.”
“Thank you?” he repeats, shoving his hands into the pockets of his gym shorts. “Why’s that? Because he’s still in one piece?”
I smile widely. “Yeah. I could have done so much worse. As you know.”
River doesn’t return my smile for some reason. “Pretty neat trick you accomplished.”
“I thought so.” I turn to leave, but River grabs my arm. I glare at him as his fingernails dig into my skin. “You want something, River?”
“You aren’t supposed to be here,” he snaps. “For obvious fucking reasons.” He gestures in the direction of the DJ, but he never takes his eyes off of me.
“I didn’t see a ‘No Medusas allowed’ sign anywhere.” I reach up to stroke his jaw, but he yanks back. “Relax. Everyone’s having fun. Except Tate, I guess, but does that matter?”
“You going to go through every member of the frat and air their dirty little secrets?” River asks.
“Sounds like a plan. Thanks for suggesting it.” I step away from River, but he doesn’t let go of my arm.
“You plan on kissing them, too? Is that part of your plan?” he asks, and while his voice is tightly controlled, I know him well enough to know he’s at the edge of bursting.
“Why shouldn’t I? It’s not like anyone else around here wants to kiss me.” I pull harder on my arm, but he only squeezes tighter.
“Maybe there are good reasons for that,” he replies. “Did you ever think about that?”
“Maybe there are good reasons for what I do, too,” I answer. “But you didn’t have a problem breaking your poor frat brother’s hand, did you? Are you the only one who gets to have revenge?”
Over by the DJ table, somebody shouts, “I don’t know! I can’t fucking change the music!”
River lets out an ugly laugh. “I guess not. One day, you’re going to fuck with the wrong person.” He lets go of me.
I could theoretically leave now, but I’m feeling particularly vindictive.
“Did your dad get in touch?” I ask.
If I thought he looked murderous before, that’s nothing compared to how he looks now. “You know what? You’re right. I don’t want to kiss you. I want to strangle you.”
“And this is why Blaze is more interesting.” I flash him a wicked smile. “He’s willing to do both at once.”
His jaw clenches. “How’s that working out for you?”
“He got fucked hard, I destroyed his friendship with Asch, and now he’s going to have even more of a mess on his hands,” I say. I blow a kiss at River. “I’d say it’s working out great for me.”
River scowls. “Yeah. You’ve definitely gotten your share of revenge.” He steps away from me. “Enjoy it while you can, Pandora. When you’re finished burning the world down around you, you’ll be the only one left to enjoy it.”
What a fucking stupid line.
I flip him off and storm off to the front door. I spot Blaze trying to do damage control. Tate’s already gone.
Everybody is talking about Tate though.
“Think he pissed himself on purpose?”
“He probably wanted to drink it.”
“Fucking nasty.”
“I don’t kink-shame—nah, I kid, I fucking kink-shame.”
Yeah. Let’s see how Tate enjoys the entire campus laughing about him. I’m sure videos of this will be all over the student social media before the hour is up.
“Did you see?”
“No, fuck, what happened?”
It’s hard to get past the crowds gathering out front. Everybody wants in on the commotion now. Some of the Nyxies are trying to corral the crowd, but it’s no use.
I elbow my way past a pair in dog and cat costumes. When I’m finally free, I breathe a sigh of relief.
It worked.
Not just the individual parts, but it was all coordinated perfectly. Anastasia hijacking the sound system, the diuretic I’d laced the candy with, Tate already being half drunk and full of liquids, it all came together beautifully.
See, I can take revenge without carving anybody up.
Even if Tate would deserve it.
“Not sticking around for the show?” a guy asks.
I look over my shoulder to see “Perseus” from earlier.
“Nah,” I say. “Can’t risk some no-good Greek hero chopping my head off. Although you might want to look at your shield instead of directly at me, buddy, or else you might turn to stone.”
“Just my cock though, right?” He gets closer to me, and I realize now he’s probably not a student. He’s a bit older, maybe late twenties, which makes me wonder why he’s here, at some college sorority party.
There’s only one type of guy that likes hanging out with women much younger than himself.
“Nah. I don’t discriminate against the more worthless parts of a man,” I retort. “Who are you, anyway? You’re not one of the Chaos losers.”
The guy smiles at me. “I am, actually. My name’s Ezio. I graduated a few years ago. After Zayden disappeared, I got asked if I wanted to take over the day to day fraternity operations.”
“So you’re that old and don’t have a full time job? Kind of sad,” I say, purposefully ignoring his dig about Zayden.
“Yeah. I’m kind of pathetic like that.” Ezio waves to me. “It was nice meeting you, Pandora. Maybe I’ll see you around.”
I shake my head and keep walking.
Halfway down the block, I realize I hadn’t actually introduced myself to him.
Well, maybe Blaze told him who I was.
Yeah, that must have been it.
Fucking Blaze.